Projects

The ongoing modernization of Los Angeles International Airport gained momentum Tuesday when the City Council approved $4.76 billion in additional improvements, including a controversial plan to move the northernmost runway closer to homes in Westchester and Playa del Rey. The vote was a defeat for airport activists and community organizations that have fought to halt the runway project, which they charge would lead to an expansion of the nation's sixth-busiest...

Epidemiologists are investigating an outbreak of valley fever that has sickened 28 workers at two large solar power construction sites in San Luis Obispo County. Staff from the California Department of Public Health, and investigators from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health and San Luis Obispo County visited the sites near the Carrizo Plain two months ago, officials said. They identified the sites as the Topaz Solar Farm and California Valley Solar Ranch, two large-scale photovoltaic power plants whose construction often requires considerable scraping and clearing to make way for thousands of acres of solar panels.

Before the bulldozers arrived last June, Malibu Lagoon was a fully grown habitat for egrets, voles and tidewater gobies, studded with sycamore trees and clusters of tule reeds. Today, the lagoon's islands appear almost barren, covered by a sea of tiny red and blue plastic flags marking young plants just taking root. Depending on whom you talk to, the lagoon has been restored - or ruined. On Friday, bureaucrats, biologists and birders will descend on the state beach at the mouth of Malibu Creek for the ribbon cutting to mark what state officials are calling "the long and successful journey toward restoration.

California's bullet train agency is facing a series of new regulatory and political problems that could jeopardize its July construction kickoff, which already has been delayed more than six months. The new challenges are coming from a private railroad that controls a key right of way, a legislative committee delving into contracting issues and a powerful federal agency asserting authority over the project. The rail agency is beginning to make purchase offers for land around Fresno and says it still plans to start building this summer.

WASHINGTON - Barbara Boxer has long been one of the Senate's environmental champions, racking up perfect scores for each of the last five years on the League of Conservation Voters' report card on key votes. But the Californian now finds herself on the opposite side of an issue from her usual environmental allies and some of her fellow Democrats. Environmentalists are upset because she is pushing legislation that would impose deadlines for environmental reviews of water projects, a move they see as "tilting the scales" toward rushed approvals.

The city officials who run Los Angeles International Airport have been trying for what seems like forever to move the north runway 260 feet closer to the boundary separating the airport from the community of Westchester. The move would put more space between the two main runways and allow pilots to use a central taxiway without risking collision. When the City Council takes up the matter this week, it should complete this chapter of the long, sorry saga of neighborhood versus airport and approve the north runway move.

Elon Musk quips that it's easier getting rockets into orbit than navigating his commute between home in Bel-Air and his Space Exploration Technologies factory in Hawthorne. "The 405 … varies from bad to horrendous," said Musk, who also co-founded PayPal and Tesla Motors. "It just seems people in Los Angeles are being tortured by this. … I don't know why they aren't marching in the streets. " The massive project to widen the 405 Freeway is not only causing traffic nightmares for motorists like Musk but has also been plagued by cost overruns and delays.

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday criticized the State Department's environmental impact review of the Keystone XL pipeline, saying there was not enough evidence to back up key conclusions on gas emissions, safety and alternative routes. In a letter to top State Department officials, the agency said it had "environmental objections" to their review, which concluded the pipeline would have minimal impact on the environment. The analysis could complicate efforts to win approval for the controversial $7-billion project.

LAS VEGAS - For nearly five years, the steel-and-concrete skeleton of the abandoned resort project has taunted this city, a glaring reminder that casino operators here can't win every economic wager they place. The stalled Echelon project sits on hallowed gambling ground: It's where the old Stardust casino was imploded. Construction on the new $4-billion resort began in 2007 and froze a year later - a failure so embarrassing that city officials later ordered owner Boyd Gaming Corp.

"It's a difficult business," writes David Graeber, "creating a new, alternative civilization. " Just open a window or turn on the TV - the same old civilization is rotting all around us. Budget cuts, police shootings, endless and ever-broadening wars, the climate in full-scale, almost-end-times spasm, a Congress of hand puppets yelping on about the manufactured crisis of the moment, a president whose answer to every crisis is More of the Same....